Recompense
by FeatherWriter
Summary: A Crow's Rescue - Part 2 / Fallen have always been dangerous and enigmatic enemies, but when a Guardian finds herself taken prisoner by the reclusive House of Kings, she finds dangers, secrets, and perhaps worst of all, an old acquaintance from an ill-fated encounter on Mars.
1. Chapter 1

The first thing Sylvanni realized was wrong when she woke up was the fact that she woke up at all.

As her addled thoughts struggled back towards fully aware, she focused on the odd thought. Bleary eyelids opened slowly, heavily, eyes refusing to focus on her dim surroundings. She needed her bearings: What had happened? Where was she? And what was going on? Why had she woken up, and why did waking up concern her?

Before her questions for the present were addressed, her memories came back to her, answering her first confusion. She shouldn't have woken up because she was supposed to be dead.

She'd been out, alone on deep patrol, as had become more common after the "Athabasca Incident" on Mars. She liked solitude, she knew how to watch her own back, and she was a good navigator. When the Vanguard wanted information on areas beyond normal patrol routes, Sylvanni liked taking those missions. Sylvanni liked to take those missions.

"Half a Hunter, that one," Cayde had said as she'd walked past. She assumed he'd meant it as a compliment. He didn't understand she didn't like being out there for the sake of the natural world or the untamed wilderness. She just liked the quiet.

With the SIVA outbreak, there were concerns that the House of Devils might be pushing out of the Plaguelands, and the last thing anyone wanted was this madness spreading. She'd been careful, investigating various sites marked "Of Concern" on her dossier, and ensuring she checked in with reports detailing what she'd found at each one. She hadn't thought she'd attracted attention while going about her mission.

Apparently she'd been wrong.

The ambush was coordinated. She hadn't accidentally stumbled upon a group of Fallen. No, they had _intentionally_ come for her with a precise and well-strategized attack. A squad of Vandals, cloaked in stealth tech, rushing her position while groups of shanks moved to flank, swiftly surrounding her. By the time the two captains had closed on her she'd been shieldless and already wounded.

The last thing she remembered seeing was the captain's secondary arm, swinging for her head, and then everything had gone black.

Hence her confusion upon waking up. She should have been dead.

She raised a hand to her temple as she sat up, feeling her head swim. A sharp, yet faintly sweet chemical odor pierced her sinuses as she breathed in, its heady smell making her cough and choke. Reaching for her face, she yanked off a cloth that had been tied there, covering her nose and mouth. The fabric was stiff and a quick check confirmed that it was the source of the nauseating fumes.

 _Clever_ , she had to begrudgingly admit, as she put the pieces together.

Guardians were notoriously difficult to incapacitate, nonlethally at least. Light would heal any wounds that didn't kill fairly quickly, and so rendering a Guardian unconscious would usually only last a few minutes. Even poisons or chemical weapons were of limited efficacy, quick to be purged from the system.

If a captor were able to keep a constant source of anaesthetic, however, such as an inhaled toxin over her face, she'd keep breathing it in while she was out, unable to wake up out of it. She wasn't sure what kind of compound they'd used on her, but she guessed it was probably something stronger than a normal person would have been able to handle. All they'd have to do was keep it doused so the fumes didn't dry out and she'd stay under.

 _Leave it to the Fallen to go for the 'ether soaked rag' strategy._

It was certainly the Fallen who had her. Looking around what she could now see was a cell, there were symbols from their writing system on the walls and outside, golden fabric hung painted with a white icon. The room itself looked somewhat rundown, with cracks through the concrete walls and debris scattered across the floor. The bars on the open side were bent, twisted, and rusted away in places, but she could see a sturdy grid of arc energy covering it over, lest she get any ideas about escape.

The question was why. She'd died at Fallen hands plenty of times, and they'd never shown any indication of trying to take prisoners before now. Her capture had been very intentional and well planned. It had taken effort for them to capture her without killing her. Now she needed to figure out what they wanted.

 _Focus on the details._ They'd taken her weapons and armor, predictably. Thankfully they'd left the tank top undershirt and pants she usually wore beneath her robes. And her socks, she noticed, but no boots. With a sigh she reached down to tug those off. No point in wearing holes in them. It wasn't as though socks would protect her feet anyway.

She flexed her right hand trying to get a feel for her Light reserves. They were shockingly low. Dangerously so, even. Had the anaesthesia somehow drained her of her abilities?

"Ghost, can I get a scan of the room? How long have I been unconscious?"

The empty silence that followed the question hit her harder than any bullet ever had.

 _Don't panic_ , she told herself, even as she felt her traitorous veins surge with adrenaline and her traitorous heartbeat thundering in her ears. _If they wanted you dead, they would have already killed you._

Whatever was going on, they'd taken great pains to take her alive. She wished that thought were more of a comfort.

 _Maybe he's just… disabled again_ , she thought, remembering the time she been stranded on Mars. They'd devised a way to capture a Guardian. It was plausible they'd figured out a way to detain her Ghost. This could be a hostage sort of situation, and they'd keep her Ghost unless she gave them what they wanted.

This truly was an awful situation when something like that was her best case scenario.

She refused to consider the possibility that he was dead. Even if he wasn't with her now, she wouldn't accept that outcome until she saw his shell with her own two eyes. She'd just need to be careful until she found him again. That was all. She could play this safe until then.

For now, she needed to focus on what she did have. Few resources, true, but at the moment, the most valuable commodity would be information. Such would be true of any Guardian, but it was especially apt as a warlock. Her cell was sparse, but there was information to be gleaned here.

Besides, the intellectual puzzle of figuring out the situation would distract her from its horrifying realities, she hoped.

One thing she could intuit right off the bat: this was the Fallen, but it wasn't the House of Devils. None of the group that had ambushed her had been SIVA splicers and their colors were golden, not Devils' red.

Leaning forward through the decrepit bars—though careful not to get too close to the arc field—she tried to get a better look at the banner hung on the wall. It was tattered and askew, but the painted white symbol was visible. Shaped like a pillar, or a T with two lines serving as the base, it had one circle inside toward the top.

She racked her brain, trying to place the iconography, though unfortunately, Fallen houses weren't her area of expertise. This wasn't a common symbol either, though there was a familiarity to it in that she knew she'd seen it recently somewhere.

 _Shiro's cloak_ , she realized. It had been patchwork and cut apart, but the color and shape of it matched perfectly. _Which means… House of Kings?_

She tried to think of what she knew of the House, but unfortunately, it wasn't much. The Kings were reclusive, their agendas and strategies widely unknown. They rarely participated in attacks out in the open and seemed withdrawn even from the other Fallen. It made sense, she supposed, that the unconventional House would be the one trying unconventional tactics, like capturing Guardians alive, but it still didn't tell her why.

She felt for her Light again and realized with a sinking feeling that she'd gained hardly any since the last time she'd checked. Closing her eyes, she focused inward, trying to sense the Traveler innately. Its presence was so faint it may has well have been nonexistent.

No armor, no weapons, no Ghost, and no Light. The situation was unideal to say the least. She paced about the room, trying to think of things she could do to improve her chances here, but nothing came to mind. Eventually she accepted her lack of options, and settled back in a corner where she could see the open sides of the cell easily.

There was nothing to do but wait and see what came about.


	2. Chapter 2

A few hours later, a shuffling sound coming down the hallway roused Sylvanni from her thoughts.

She slowly found her feet, not wanting to draw attention to herself with too much movement. Two Vandals walked into the open space of the prison room, dragging something—no, an unfortunate some _one_ —between them. The captive appeared to be unconscious, or at least nonresponsive, as the Fallen guards opened the cell beside Sylvanni's and unceremoniously tossed the prisoner in.

Whoever it was, she could see little of them, covered in a tattered cloth that might have once been a cloak. _A Hunter, perhaps?_ Only the soles of the boots—the only part of the body she could actually see—indicated there was a person beneath there at all. There was no motion from them as the Vandals shut the barred door with a clang and activated the arc grid there.

At the sound of harsh alien speech beside her, Sylvanni flinched back, realizing there was a third Vandal in the room, one she hadn't noticed before. It stayed back, observing the other two, or perhaps supervising them. An officer of some kind, if Sylvanni had to hazard a guess, judging by the tunic-like cloth over its armor and wide, hooded mantle around its neck; decorations that the two guards lacked.

This one looked at her then, saying something in the harsh clicks and hisses of the Fallen language. She feared it was trying to speak to her—asking questions she wouldn't be able to comprehend—until one of the other guards respond across the room.

Still, this one _was_ looking at her. Fighting down her nerves, she took a shot in the dark. "Can you understand me?"

" _Un-der-stand_?" The three syllables of the word were pronounced with such drawn length and distinct separation that Sylvanni believed it was simply an alien tongue trying to mimic odd sounds, until it was followed by a confirmation. "Yes."

She started; she hadn't actually expected an answer. "You speak our language."

"Not much… of a language," the Vandal rasped out. There was a deliberate effort to each sound, as though each particular phoneme required effort to perform correctly.

Back in the Reef, Sylvanni hadn't ever considered Variks' speech to be particularly fluid, but now, comparing it to her current captor's, she could see that the language must have been a more difficult challenge for Variks than she'd realized. The pronunciations this Vandal made weren't perfect, but littered with approximations. Through the consonants, an assortment of clicks had replaced most of the stops. But the end result was close enough to be intelligible.

Sylvanni chose her next words carefully. She needed information, which meant she needed to keep her captor talking. "Waking here was… unexpected," she said slowly. "I did not know the House of Kings accepted guests. To what do I owe this… _gift_ of your House's hospitality?"

A chirring escaped the mask with a puff of ether, which the Guardian belatedly registered as a laugh. "Not _my_ House."

Blinking, Sylvanni reassessed. The draperies and fabric panels that made up this leader's outfit weren't golden, like the guards'. She would have noticed earlier if she hadn't been so distracted by the situation. Instead, they were a bright forest green, and the painted symbol upon them was made of four horizontal lines, surrounded by four circles in a diamond pattern. Unlike the Kings' mark, this iconography was deeply familiar to her.

House Judgement.

Sylvanni was unable to keep the surprise from her tone. "I thought Variks was the only surviving member of House Judgement."

It was the wrong thing to say. The Vandal snarled at her with such savage ferocity that she instinctively stepped back from the bars.

" _Traitors_ have no House."

Ducking her head, the Guardian amended her statement. "Apologies. All I meant was, I did not think there were any of House Judgement among the other Houses."

Four glowing eyes narrowed behind the ether mask. "Wolves prowl. Kings scheme. Devils experiment. Judgement _persists._ "

Contemplating that answer, the Warlock chose her next inquiry with care. She still needed information above all else, but at least she seemed to be getting responses. Perhaps she could push for more.

"My question remains, despite my incorrect assumption of your House," Sylvanni said slowly. "Might I know the purpose of my… _visit_?"

The Vandal clicked her mandibles idly. "It speaks smooth words to an enemy. Smoother lies."

"I've spoken no lies to you."

The Vandal's voice rasped over a single syllable. " _Yet_." The Guardian pursed her lips at the accusation, but before she could respond, the Fallen continued. "You ask purpose. Trial for your crimes."

Sylvanni's eyebrow arched. "For my crimes? You can't really accuse a soldier of murder for fighting her enemies. There's been killing on both sides, has there not?"

"Your kind began the conflict."

"You attacked _our_ cities, our people! We fought back in self-defense!"

The Vandal shook its head, clicking softly. "Theft came first. Took Great Machine."

"Is that what this is about?" Sylvanni bit back a groan. "We didn't steal anything. The Traveler _chose_ us. Chose _me_."

"And lies begin." The Fallen settled back, as though satisfied a point had been made. "Soon, crimes answered for. Recompense comes."

The Warlock stepped away from the bars, realizing this was a futile argument. She crossed her arms. "If you're looking for 'recompense,' why not just kill me?"

"Death… not true punishment. Not for you."

Hope flickered to life, fragile as a candle flame. "Does that mean… Do you have my Ghost?"

The smile that pulled at the Vandal's four eyes was as amused as it was cruel. "It is afraid to be like us. The thief fears it has lost what it has stolen."

Sylvanni didn't give the satisfaction of a reaction, steeling her face to stoic impassivity and staring her captor down. This seemed to signal the end of the conversation, as the Fallen called out to the two guards in their alien speech and the three headed out of the room. She'd almost forgotten the other prisoner during the conversation, though now they were alone, her thoughts turned to the other cell.

A barred opening served as a window between the two cells at about shoulder height. She leaned over, trying to get a look inside. The cloth-covered body hadn't moved an inch.

She waited until she was certain the Fallen were out of hearing range. "Hello, are you awake? Can you hear me?"

Nothing.

But then, a small shuffle and a weak groan.

The Warlock's breath left her in a rush of relief. "Oh, thank the Traveler. I thought you might be dead. Are you injured?"

The figure stilled for a few heartbeats, seeming to gather strength for another attempt to get up. A hand emerged from beneath the tatters. The skin was an Awoken gray, with a faint lavender undertone. With a feeble heave, he pushed himself onto his side and lifted his head to look at her.

Her breath caught as the recognition locked into place, and she found herself staring straight into the golden eyes of a beaten, battered, and bruised Uldren Sov.


	3. Chapter 3

Immediately upon recognizing him, Sylvanni felt an immediate surge of simmering, molten rage.

She knew she probably shouldn't have. For one, she could see that he was in a terrible state. Splotches of dark navy and violet marred his skin in deep bruises. His skin was pallid, eyes sunken. Even the glow seemed to have dimmed from them, and from his feeble movements, he'd obviously suffered grave mistreatment during his captivity.

If she were a kinder person, perhaps she would have set their history aside enough to pity him. But the pettier side of her said that she'd tried to be the bigger person last time, she'd seen how that turned out.

Let him be the one to try to make nice first this time. She was entitled to her anger and she planned on keeping it.

For the moment, she considered it was probably a good thing there was a solid layer of concrete and rebar between the two of them. For his sake.

Her shock and fury kept her in stunned silence long enough for him to push himself into a sitting lean against the wall and get the first word.

"Lady Fortune has a terrible sense of humor," he said, with a voice surprisingly steady for how weak he looked.

"I don't believe there's anything _fortunate_ about this situation," Sylvanni bit back. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Same as you, I suspect. Being held captive, suffering whatever tortures the House of Kings can come up with, general suffering."

She slowly shook her head, tone turning vicious. "You know? If you were _anyone_ else, I'd feel bad for you. In the hands of your enemies, enduring abuses, no hope of rescue because everyone who could possibly care about you believes you're dead. And yet, that situation is _directly_ your fault. As far as I'm concerned, you deserve whatever they do to you."

His eyes narrowed. "Uncharacteristically cruel of you, Guardian."

"As though you actually know _anything_ of my character." She scoffed. "You probably don't even remember my name."

She turned away, boiling with frustration and convinced that speaking with him further would only make it worse. Truly, to be locked up with _Uldren Sov_ of all people… Some paracausal entity must have been in control of her life, seeking new ways to torment her. Perhaps this was all a simulation, and she was actually at the mercy of some sadistic Vex mind, playing games with her. The idea that random, entropic, chaotic _reality_ would have conceived such a turn of events was too difficult to believe.

"Sylvanni Duv." The name was softly spoken; she almost believed she hadn't truly heard it. "I'm not in the habit of forgetting those who save my life."

She turned back, glaring death at him through the broken opening. "Well, I'm not in the habit of forgetting those who _take_ mine."

"Is that what you're upset about?" He sighed, rolling his eyes. "Dying is what your kind _does_. It's not like you were actually harmed. Does it really count as killing you if you're standing here now, talking to me?"

"Yes! Of course it does!" She gripped the rusted bars, pressing her face close to them. There was no arc grid between the cells, just over the doors to the outside, so she didn't need to worry about being shocked. "You rammed a knife into my neck, sabotaged my Ghost, and took my Sparrow! I went out of my way to help you when you were stranded in the middle of the desert. I fought at your side to protect you against the Vex. And perhaps most difficult of all, I tried to be _polite_ to you despite the fact that you might just be the most self-absorbed, literally-backstabbing asshole to ever draw breath."

"Oh, don't hold back on my account," he drawled, seeming to actually enjoy her outburst. "Tell me how you really feel."

She expelled a tense, controlled breath, stepping away. "Truly, the Fallen are masters of torture, if they were cruel enough to put me in a cell beside yours." She mimed as though she were calling down the hallway, though she didn't actually raise her voice enough to carry. "Wait, come back! I'll tell you anything you want to know, but for the love of the Traveler, I can't take anymore!"

He settled back against the wall. "Something tells me you'll be less snide about the torture once it actually starts."

Something in the weight of his words sobered her, somewhat. Letting herself get lost in her enmity with the prince, it was easy to forget where they were and the dire nature of their situation. He _had_ been tortured at the Fallen's hands, and he was right: in all likelihood, the same fate awaited her soon.

She retreated to the other side of her cell, sitting so that she could no longer see Uldren. If she was being honest with herself, the bickering had been a distraction, a way to forget the larger issues for a few minutes. But she couldn't ignore them forever. She had no resources, no allies, and almost no hope of rescue either. At least the Vanguard might send someone after her if she disappeared, but the likelihood of them actually finding her was slim.

This time, she broke the silence, surprising herself. "Did you know there were other members of House Judgment?" She hadn't intended to say anything further, but the query slipped free.

"No, we didn't," he answered after a long pause. "Variks believed he was the last. Meeting Erxaris was certainly a surprise."

Perhaps conversation was better this way, when they couldn't see each other. Easier to keep civil.

"Erxaris?"

"The House Judgment representative. I heard you speaking with her when I came to."

She'd guessed who the name referred to from his context; her question had been more an expression of surprise that Uldren knew the Vandal by name.

"What do they want from us?" Her words were soft, meant to be more rhetorical than actual, but Uldren answered anyway.

"They've pressed me for information. Interrogations and intimidations, mostly, asking about the Reef, about defenses, about our prisoners and our fleet. I haven't exactly cooperated, which seems to make them a tad perturbed. Perhaps they hope to interrogate you about the Tower and the Traveler, Guardian."

Sylvanni didn't respond to that, mulling his words over silently. It was a plausible enough reason, she supposed, but something about it didn't sit right with her. The Vandal, this Erxaris,had spoken of punishment, an answering of crimes.

She had a sinking feeling that whatever was in store for her, it would be something worse entirely.


	4. Chapter 4

The arc grid's hum masked the buzz of cloaking tech. Sylvanni wasn't paying enough attention to the seemingly empty surroundings of her cell, lost in her thoughts, until the moment the attack sprang.

She heard something metallic clatter to the floor of her cell, a canister of some kind, and then suddenly the air filled with billowing clouds of noxious fumes. She coughed as the scent filled her lungs, making her head swim. She collapsed to the floor, mental panic speeding up as the insidious weakness overtook her body. She opened her mouth to yell, to scream, to call for a help that wasn't coming, but the smoke rushed in instead, choking her.

She was entirely helpless as the cell door clanged open. Two Vandals pinned her roughly, one set of four hands pinning her arms down while the other swiftly bound her wrists, then her ankles. She was surprised that they took such precautions against her. Apparently even weaponless, armorless, and Ghostless, they saw her as a threat. Enough to gas her before opening the door.

She'd be flattered if she weren't so terrified.

As a final touch, they yanked a cloth sack over her head, obscuring her vision. Then they pulled her up and began to drag her from the cell. For the first few minutes of the trip, she couldn't do anything to resist with the toxin in her system. Her arms ached as they pulled her between them, feet dragging limply on the floor.

Eventually the smoke's effects wore off, but tied as she was, she had no leverage. She tried a few times to get her feet up under her, if only for some momentary relief for her aching shoulders, but whenever she did, they yanked her forward off-balance again.

When they finally reached their destination she was dropped to the floor, hitting hard against her face with nothing to break her fall. She groaned, pained all over. A hand grabbed the bag—and an unfortunate amount of her hair with it—and yanked the cloth free.

She stared up into the glowing, hollow gaze of a Servitor floating inches from her face.

She had a moment of primal panic, like the jolt of adrenaline she got when the center of her radar flashed from an enemy she hadn't seen approach. She'd never been so close to a Servitor that she hadn't destroyed immediately afterward.

That fear redoubled as the Servitor began to charge up, the glowing ring of its mechanical eye brightening as a recognizable whirr ascended in both pitch and volume. She struggled against the hands that held her down, staring annihilation dead on with no way to escape.

The Fallen held her fast. She closed her eyes, offering a single prayer to the Traveler as the Servitor unleashed its blast.

Only… it wasn't a blast. She gasped, eyes flying open as it hit her; not an attack, but a _pulse_. It washed across her, over her, through her and something deep within thrummed in response. Her bones resonated beneath her skin, every nerve firing at once in a sensation that was not quite pain.

The guards released her, leaving her to tremble on the floor, muscles spasming as the _whatever it was_ slowly ebbed from her body. She didn't even notice the bonds on her wrists being undone until she unthinkingly tried to push herself up and realized her hands were free.

The House Judgment Vandal, the one Uldren named Erxaris, stood over her, peering down with a keen curiosity. Her presence seemed like a bad sign.

"What… did you do to me?" Sylvanni asked, surprised at how unsteady her voice sounded. Now that her hands were freed, Sylvanni could see that the guards who had brought her in had their long spears trained on her, ready to strike her down if she tried anything.

Erxaris tipped her head. "The Other spoke of many things. Interesting things."

 _The Other?_ Sylvanni wondered, after realizing with annoyance that her question had been completely ignored. _Uldren?_

"Spoke of prisoners. Captives not held in cells, but hunted. Killed for sport. A game."

There was a moment of confusion, and then a sudden nauseating dread. It clicked in her mind.

The Prison of Elders.

She had a moment of unexpected empathy with the Fallen, thinking what the Prison must look like from their perspective. To Guardians it _was_ a game. They kept score. They gave each other challenges. They laughed over comms through the fights. They were never in any real danger.

Yes, the enemies they fought there were prisoners, but they still served the Darkness. There was no reason to spare them, just because they were captured. Or so she'd thought. How would she have felt if those were members of her species, being hunted for sport? She'd killed plenty of Fallen in the Prison. She'd struck down a Kell.

The captives in the Prison were contained, technically no longer a threat to anyone. They were killed for entertainment, nothing more.

Erxaris leaned down close to the Warlock's face. "It looks worried."

Sylvanni forced herself to meet the Vandal's eyes. "I think I've figured out what it is you intend to do with me."

"Baroness intrigued," Erxaris hissed out, and Sylvanni could have sworn the Vandal was smiling beneath her mask. "Wishes to see prisoners punished for crimes. Wishes to watch. You will fight. And you will die."

She resisted the urge to ask ' _and then?_ ' She wasn't going to ask about her Ghost again. She had a feeling that was exactly what Erxaris was hoping for, and she didn't want to give her the satisfaction.

Very slowly, so as not to spook her guards, Sylvanni turned her head, eyeing a large double door at the other end of the room, more than twice the size of the other doors out of the room. She could swear she heard a faint roar from that direction. It seemed her execution would have an audience.

On the other side of Erxaris, the Servitor floated, watching her with a silent stare. There was an uncomfortable _intelligence_ to it; not a mindless machine, but something with sapience. With malice.

She tried to sense if there were any lingering effects of whatever it had hit her with, but she couldn't pin anything down. Everything was too overwhelming to know for sure.

So, they intended to have her fight for sport? She could work with that.

"The Baroness," Sylvanni said, trying to put the Servitor out of her mind, "is she newly raised?"

Erxaris cocked her head, giving a few inquisitive clicks before dipping a single nod. "Rewarded. Promotion for valiant service."

Sylvanni only pretended that she couldn't hide her smirk, chuckling to herself. Erxaris bristled, taking the response as an insult against an important member of their society. She made a sharp gesture with her lower hand and in an instant, all three guards spears were at Sylvanni's neck, barely brushing the skin.

Erxaris slunk forward in a fluid, dangerous motion, getting extremely close to her captive's face. "It is amused?"

Sylvanni met her gaze evenly, refusing to be intimidated, even with weapons ready to run her through. They wanted to make a spectacle of killing her. They weren't going to off her here in a back room just because she talked back.

"I meant no disrespect," the Guardian lied, letting the insincerity show in her tone. "It simply occurred to me that your Baroness should probably thank me. The last time I faced the House of Kings, I killed three of their Barons. She probably owes me her promotion, since I opened the way for her."

Erxaris hissed, ether puffing from the sides of her mask and for a moment, Sylvanni thought she'd miscalculated and had gone too far. Though the guards couldn't understand what she'd said, one reacted to their leader's aggression, unintentionally nicking the side of her neck with his spear. Sylvanni forced herself to remain perfectly still, even as she felt the small stream of blood drip down the side of her neck, fearing she'd impale herself on the other spears if she so much as flinched.

For a few tense heartbeats, the two simply stared at one another, Sylvanni believing that at any moment she'd hear some snapped order in their language before they rammed a blade through her.

But it never came. Erxaris backed away though, seeming reluctant to leave the comment unpunished. "I will enjoy watching them kill you," the Vandal finally said, as though realizing she didn't need to win the upper hand.

Sylvanni kept a calm smile on her face as the House Judgment representative gathered one of the three guards and the Servitor and headed for the door. Despite the fact that she was very possibly being brought to her death, the Guardian couldn't help but feel satisfied that she'd won some kind of victory.

"Erxaris," Sylvanni called.

The Vandal woman turned, though likely more in surprise at hearing her name from the Guardian than as a response. It had probably been pronounced incorrectly, but Sylvanni didn't care. So long as Erxaris was listening, she would take it.

"It won't be much of a fight for the Baroness like this," Sylvanni days, gesturing to herself. "Unarmed and unarmored. I don't even have shoes." She wiggled a bare foot at the Vandal to reinforce her point.

Erxaris sneered. "Seeks pity?"

"Of course not. I'm simply saying that it won't be _entertaining_ if I'm just killed immediately. At least make it interesting. Give me a weapon or something. You don't want this over too quickly, do you?"

It felt like a long shot, but she needed any edge she could get. Besides, she was already headed toward her death. What harm could come from asking?

Erxaris considered for a long time, watching her closely. Eventually though, she reached over with one of her lower arms and grabbed something from a rack on the wall before throwing it at Sylvanni with a deadly precision.

The Guardian ducked instinctively, reflexes moving of their own accord as they snatched the object from the air. A short knife, which she had somehow blessedly managed to grab by the handle, not cutting herself. _Why can't I ever do that in the Crucible?_

"Shock dagger," Erxaris rasped, and Sylvanni would have sworn she was smirking. "Dreg weapon. Suits you."

Sylvanni assumed the offer was meant as an insult, but she'd take whatever she could get. Flipping the small switch next to the hilt, she felt the little blade start to hum in her hands, jagged threads of arc energy flickering down its surface.

It wasn't much, but it was something.

Calming herself for whatever was coming next, she turned back to the main doors, letting the guards prod her toward them. If anything, they were more wary of her now that she had a weapon, even a small one. She momentarily considered trying an attack, something risky to get away, but she had no upper hand here. They'd cut her down immediately.

The two guards marched her straight up to the doors, two spear points at her back to keep her from running. Absently, as she waited, she reached up to the side of her neck, touching the place where she'd been cut. Though the blood was still wet, staining her fingers, the skin beneath was now hale and undamaged.

 _So I've got a little bit of healing that still works,_ she thought. With no armor and no shields, she couldn't take many hits, but perhaps she wasn't entirely defenseless.

That too, was something _._

Squaring her stance, she lifted her chin, determined to meet her fate head on. Whatever came next, she wasn't going down without a fight.


	5. Chapter 5

Light, harsh and blinding, shone through as the doors were opened and Sylvanni was shoved through.

She stumbled, catching her balance as the dull roar of an alien crowd washed over her. Floodlights lit the space, but as she shielded her eyes, they adjusted, giving her a first real look at where they'd thrown her.

It was an arena. An actual arena, surprisingly, some old ruin from the Golden Age. The area of it just to her right had completely collapsed, large ragged blocks having fallen from the ceiling and buried the stands and part of the arena floor there. No light came from above, just further dark depths of rock. She hadn't realized how deep underground they'd brought her.

To her left, in contrast, there was a half-circle of arena that was mostly intact. Tiered rows of seats held Fallen of all kinds, draped and clad in an almost uniform marigold. A roar rose from the crowd as they saw her emerge onto the floor, though she couldn't understand whether the sound was excited or furious. The sounds of masses were wrong and alien-sounding, indecipherable.

In the very center of the intact sections of the seats, a large square platform had been carved out, set apart from the rest of the audience by a low wall. Upon it, a massive Fallen—the Baroness, presumably—lounged in an uncomfortable looking throne, a construction of welded scrap and weapons. Two guards with spears flanked the throne, standing at attention, and off to one side, Erxaris stood dutifully, a slash of green in a sea of yellow, and the hostility in the Vandal's gaze palpable even from across the great distance. Sylvanni glared back at her.

Her anger at the House Judgement Vandal evaporated instantly, however, as she noticed something else on that platform. The Baroness had, resting on the arm of her throne, a glowing canister, with one clawed hand comfortably resting atop it. She shouldn't have been able to make out anything about it at this distance, and if she was being honest, perhaps she couldn't. Perhaps it wasn't that she saw what was in that cylinder so much as felt it. There was a little speck within, she just knew.

Her Ghost.

A part of her wanted to sprint across the floor, throw herself into a glide over the wall and into the stands. She'd take them on with a shock dagger alone to get him back, to rescue him from their—quite literal—clutches.

She might have done just that if not for a particularly aggressive member of the crowd tried to throw something down at her. Arc energy skittered in a crackling ripple from the point where the object hit the near-invisible mesh that enclosed the arena floor. Sylvanni was certain this space was completely covered. They wouldn't risk letting her escape or harm members of the crowd, the Baroness included.

So instead of doing something reckless, Sylvanni set her shoulders back, fixed the Baroness with a steely look, and strode to the center of this empty dirt floor with her chin held high. Absently, she flipped her grip on the dagger from normal to reversed and back again several times, trying to grow comfortable with its weight and feel.

The number of Fallen filling the intact seats in this massive room was overwhelming. Sylvanni had never seen so many in one place. Out in the wilds, she encountered them roaming in packs, but this mass of hundreds, possibly thousands, was deeply unsettling, especially considering how little they'd known of House Kings. Was this most of the House's members, or were there even more than this, hidden away elsewhere?

The crowd hushed as Erxaris stepped forward on the platform and began to speak. She addressed the audience and though Sylvanni couldn't see anything resembling a microphone, the proclamation carried throughout the space, echoing. It was Fallen speech, unintelligible to the Guardian, so she simply listened to the noise of it and waited for Erxaris to finish. She wondered what was being said of her.

Nothing good, she could assume.

The cheers took up again as Erxaris hissed the last words, four arms upraised in a flourish. Sylvanni's grip on the dagger tightened as another set of double doors opened in the wall across from her, and a squad of dregs spilled out into the arena. It almost felt wrong to feel threatened by them, and yet, here she was. With her powers and equipment, she could have demolished the entire group in seconds, hardly breaking a sweat.

Now all she had was a dagger.

She bounced a few times on her toes, trying to get the blood flowing. The dregs fanned out, chittering to one another as they watched her, but only one stepped forward ahead of the others to meet her. She wondered what had earned them their place down here in the sand, facing her. Was this a privilege to them, a chance to fight for honor? Was it a long-shot hope for the lowest of soldiers, in hopes of winning a promotion by being the one to strike her down? Or were they prisoners, sent to face her as punishment?

She locked eyes with the one who had stepped forward away from the group, and a wordless understanding passed between them. A duel then? Would she face each of these one at a time, or did they all plan to rush her as soon as their friend here had her distracted? She wasn't going to trust her life to the honor of Fallen.

As they neared one another, both of them started to strafe slightly, waiting for an opportunity or for the other to make the first move. Sylvanni never let herself move in a full circle, not wanting to put her back to any of the other dregs, and ensuring there was only open arena behind her. There was some scattered debris on this side, toppled support beams and crumbled rock, though the damage was not as dense as the side she'd come from.

The dreg, either braver or more foolish than her, struck forward first, making a lunging slash. Sylvanni dodged sideways while trying to strike back, but she'd pulled herself too far out of range. That was always the issue with knives: if you were close enough to hit them, they could do the same.

She kept falling back, telling herself she was studying the way the dreg moved, not because she was frightened, until she nearly tripped over a pile of loose rock and realized this wasn't a lasting pattern for her. If she didn't strike back at some point, she'd eventually slip up and be killed.

A sudden change in tactics worked to her advantage. The dreg was eager after seeing her start to slip and it lunged forward. Expecting her to pull back as she had before, it wasn't ready for her to duck into range and finally make a real attack of her own. It screeched in surprise, and though her first swipe missed, glancing off the rudimentary armor, she moved quickly, making another backhand to follow it up. She stayed on the offensive now, trying to push the creature back and stay in range.

Then, an opportunity. She noted the way its head ticked sideways when she swiped to the left, perhaps an old reflex from a wound it had taken in the field long ago. All she needed was to feint at just the right time and come from the other side as it flinched. It worked perfectly, and she went high, throwing as much force as she could into the strike and feeling the dagger hum with energy as it she buried the blade deep in the dreg's neck.

It screamed in pain, writhing as the dagger's electricity coursed through it, rows of teeth visible through its open-faced helmet. In panic, it threw a wild slash at Sylvanni, still standing in close, but she caught the wrist, holding the creature down until its struggles ceased and she yanked her blade back out, letting the corpse fall.

Angry shrieks started up from the other watching dregs, and two of them moved forward. There was a slight pause as they looked at one another, expecting the other to back down, then realized they didn't care and both rushed forward anyway. Sylvanni reached down quickly, grabbing the dagger of the fallen dreg in her off-hand, then allowed herself to glance up at the stands.

What she'd felt from across the arena she could now see to confirm herself. The Baroness' hand tightened around the top of the containment chamber, her Ghost floating perfectly still within. She could have sworn that tiny bit of Light within her stirred to see him. She needed more Light than this to do anything, though.

The dregs were upon her, snarling viciously, attacking with no strategy other than to try to overwhelm her by coming at both sides. In a way, this was easier than facing the more thoughtful approach of her last opponent. Getting a kill had emboldened her, and this time, she didn't pull back at all when they leapt for her.

She ducked a slash from one, scoring a glancing slice on its side as it over-exposed. The other came at her left with a straight stab which she whirled to parry. The first charged her back while she was turned, but she could hear it coming and stepped aside, then planted a foot in its back as it rushed past her, sending it stumbling into its companion.

The Light stirred gently within her, as though it awoke now that she was finally able to do something.

More dregs started moving towards the melee, realizing if there were two fighting her already, any of them could perhaps be the third. She was fending two well enough, but feared she'd be overwhelmed with more. Time to dispatch another of these two before allies arrived to help.

The stumbling dreg she'd kicked went down as its companion shoved it away and she pounced, driving both daggers deep into its back and yanking them down in deep gouges. There was a moldy smell as dark ichor seeped from the wounds, a hissing of noxious steam as ether and the smoke of shock-burned blood rose around her hands. One of the daggers stilled, its charge depleted, but the blade was still sharp.

Light flickered and grew, kindling a power deep down that she'd missed so dearly.

The maneuver had left her open to the other dreg and even though she tried to roll sideways, she felt another dagger graze her upper arm, sending a painful jolt all the way to her spine. It shocked her, quite literally, back to full awareness, and for a moment she lost sight of the situation and the danger and everything simplified in her mind. Just another fight, just like any other time she'd lost her shield and taken a hit.

The stilled dagger was the one she'd used first—Erxaris giving her one with no charge felt like something she should have expected—so as she came up out of the roll, she put the other dreg in her sights and threw the dead blade at it as hard as she could.

It flew completely wide, of course. How in the world do Hunters get that to work?

The dreg watched it fly harmlessly by and let out a chittering sound that was probably akin to laughing at her for missing. It didn't matter though. The intent hadn't been to hit it, not really.

She'd needed to free up her hand.

She dipped into arms-reach as the dreg tried to swipe at her again and pulled that meager bit of Light within her up, praying it was enough. Her flat palm struck the dreg in the chest and she pushed as much of her Light into the creature, watching cracks of purple light shatter across its form, then dive deeper, penetrating every inch of the thing's body and weaving into the dreg's very core of being.

And then she ripped it all free, jerking her arm backward and pulling all of her Light with it. The dreg evaporated in threads of void and Sylvanni let out a small shudder of pleasure as the very essence of its life rushed into her. The wound on her shoulder mostly sealed and now she had even more Light to work with. Not enough to create a nova, perhaps, but enough that things could start getting interesting.

She turned to face the rest of the group of dregs, five of them, now running for her. For the first time since being captured, she didn't feel afraid. Now she felt powerful again. She didn't need weapons or armor, not really. She was a Guardian and this was what she was created to do.

An old worry, an old well-worn thought whispered at the back of her mind: Are you only a weapon, Sylvanni? Is any Guardian anything more than that? Is that why you only feel alive when causing death? A tool rewarded for fulfilling her purpose?

Why is the Light only drawn to you when you're killing?

They were grouped up, running together, and her instincts took over more than anything. She pushed off the ground, gliding up and back as she drew her hand in front of her and poured energy into a smaller cluster of void, tossing it directly into the middle of the pack. The grenade scattered like a firework, killing three of her attackers instantly and her Light sang, urging her to use it again.

The two on the outer edges of the runners were burned, stumbling away from the void as it consumed their companions. She glided forward, landing next to one before it could recover and ramming her dagger into its neck with a savage twist. Perhaps she was nothing more than a weapon, the Traveler's sword, but right now that was all she needed to be.

The final dreg, already burned by the void, screamed at her in desperate anger and she smiled, opening her arms as though to embrace it as it charged her. At the last moment, she threw herself into a low slide beside it, its swing for her shoulders passing harmlessly overhead, before she yanked her blade across the back of its legs.

The dreg stumbled, crashing into the ground face-first, and the Guardian stood slowly behind it, bare feet digging into the rocky sand. The creature struggled weakly, void-touched and hamstrung but alive. Looking back up into the stands, Sylvanni found the Baroness leaned forward in her throne, watching intently with an unreadable expression. Erxaris' displeasure, standing beside her, was far easier to make out.

Sylvanni offered them both an even bow, never breaking eye contact, then knelt and shoved the dagger into the wounded dreg's spine, hearing the sickening crack as it severed.

As she stood again, she left the blade behind. There were others on the ground she could pick up again if she needed them, but for now the arena was empty save for her and the dead.

"Is this all House Kings has to offer?" she shouted, voice ringing clear even above the clicks and chatter. "A handful of dregs, barely trained? I thought this was supposed to be a fight!"

Erxaris snarled, banging her spear against the platform. Sylvanni had a feeling the Vandal was regretting giving her the dagger.

Good.

She wondered what they planned to do with her now, since she had a feeling this had been a fight she wasn't supposed to survive.

Then she heard it, undistracted this time. The telltale crackle of stealth tech.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a distortion in the air rushing for her. She leapt sideways, tucking into a sloppy roll, every hair on her body standing on end as two electrified swords passed through the air right beside her. She snatched up one of those discarded daggers and rolled into a crouch, listening for the stealth. There was a slightly visible warp around stealthed enemies if you knew where to look, but in the heat of the moment, sound was far more reliable.

To the right this time, it came at her again, blades flashing as it neared. She ducked one and managed a poor parry of the other, earning a bad shock as her short blade couldn't fully deflect the sword. As the Vandal moved past her, she scooped a handful of sand and rock and flung it at the blur. Normally a few good shots would disrupt the cloaking tech and lower shields, but she had no gun. The cloud of dust, as she'd hoped, interfered enough to make the stealth light up with electricity as it tried to deflect, outlining the attacker in flashing white light.

"Let's do this, then," she said, gritting her teeth.

The Vandal had the advantage of superior reach, but Sylvanni kept it in her sights, making sure she didn't lose track of the almost invisible figure. She threw herself back and up into air, hovering with a glide out of reach of the Vandal. Smug that it had her pinned, the it moved beneath her, waiting for her to float back down.

Exactly as she'd hoped.

She conjured another grenade from her Light and threw it straight down. Even as the Vandal dodged out of being hit directly, the ground beneath it lit up in sharp violet bursts, throwing it off balance. She dropped from above, not aiming for the head or the chest, but instead making her attack at one of its wrists, the upper right one.

The Vandal screeched and dropped the sword, which, with a satisfied grin, Sylvanni snatched from the air, twirling it in her grip. Good make, surprisingly. It was no Boltcaster, sure, but it was decent.

She fell into a formal dueling stance, sword held one-handed in front of her. "Now, we can really dance."

She backed up, giving herself space to charge, then leapt forward with elegant sweeps, feeling the hum of arc energy ebb and flow as it moved. The Fallen parried her first lunges awkwardly, obviously used to fighting with two blades. And yet, with one, Sylvanni was perfectly comfortable, certain in her abilities.

At least, until a wire rifle shot punched through her shoulder.

She stumbled as the unexpected pain of the wound threw her off-balance, falling back away from her opponent and barely managing to keep hold on her blade. No! Things were going well!

Which was why they were interfering, of course. These Fallen come to see her get torn apart by a pack of dregs and she hadn't given them the show they wanted. She assumed the stealthed Vandal had been insurance in case that hadn't worked. Now she was about to kill that insurance and the idea of a fair fight was off the table.

She snarled, trying to put pressure on the wound, but she knew this wasn't one her healing factor would be able to seal any time soon, not with her Light still trickling like this. Blood soaked her prisoner's clothes, sticky and hot, but she wasn't giving up yet. Gritting her teeth, she pushed forward with a shout, switching to her non-wounded arm.

Another shot hit her knee, shattering it. She screamed, collapsing completely to the sand. They weren't even aiming to kill, she realized. This sniper was making shots to maim her and had hit them with alarming accuracy. The Vandal's footsteps approached and she weakly tried to push herself up, to mount some kind of defense. A two-toed, clawed boot nudged her and she spit at it, the experience of being wounded to the point of being disabled unfamiliar to her.

The Vandal said something to her in its language that she couldn't understand, of course. With her good arm, she managed to roll onto her side to face her opponent. It seemed to hesitate, four eyes meeting her two, then pried the sword she'd stolen from her bloodied hand and rammed them both through her chest.

She tried to scream again as the electricity coursed through her, but the blade had ruptured her lungs, and the sound was a weak, raw rasp instead. She'd been so lucky, she realized, with all the clean deaths her Ghost had given her, the way he'd kept her from suffering. She thought she'd understood pain and death, but she'd never realized how truly terrible, how agonizingly slow true death could be.

With her last bits of consciousness, she turned her gaze upward, finding that dark dot of her Ghost in his containment field. She stretched her fingers toward him, as though to pull him across the space between them, back to her once again.

Then, the last threads of her hold on life vanished, and everything faded away.


	6. Chapter 6

The first breath hurt, raw and jagged, like she'd had her head held underwater for a week.

The pain, sharp and real and beautiful, was so sweet as it sliced through her burning lungs, because at least that meant she could _feel_ something. She'd feared as she'd faded that this time, she wouldn't come back. That dying while separate from her Ghost would mean she _couldn't_ come back again.

But she was alive, blessedly alive and if everything had to burn in order to bring her back, she would relish it.

There'd been no Ghost interface before this resurrection. Just nothing and then everything. She'd had no warning before being thrust back into existence. Now, she began to take stock of the world around her, feeling the pressure on her hands and knees as she realized she was kneeling. Normally she resurrected on her feet. Had she fallen?

She was no longer in the arena, but back in the staging room. A streaky line of dark crimson blood indicated where they'd dragged her corpse back in here and dropped her back on the floor. There was motion around her but she tried to force it out of her mind, curling up into a protective ball around her hands.

As she opened her fist slowly, the most beautiful sight greeted her. Her Ghost bloomed into existence with a small flash, his mechanical eye as bright and lively as ever. She saw her hand shake as she held it out for him and realized she was silently sobbing in ragged relief.

"Ghost, Ghost, are you okay?" Her voice rasped over the words, barely audible, but he understood her. He always understood her, even when she had no words to give. "Is this real?"

"Guardian," he said quietly, the metallic sound softened, as he knew they weren't alone. "You need to be careful, I think they're going to try to take–"

A booted foot planted itself in Sylvanni's back, shoving her, and she instinctively closed her hand back around her Ghost, the signal for him to disappear, feeling the wisps of his transmat slip through her fingers. He was still with her, but safely incorporeal, waiting for her call to reappear. She wasn't going to let them steal him away again. This time she was awake and aware. They'd made a mistake, using the Ghost to bring her back. Now she wouldn't return him to their clutches for _anything_.

Unfortunately, without her armor, there was no comms signal for him to connect to and talk to her through when he was like this. He'd have to be physically present to talk, but a lack of communication wasn't too great a sacrifice. She'd rather have him out of their reach than be able to talk to him, much as she wanted to find out what had happened.

She was kicked again, this time hard enough to send her skidding across the floor. Though her wounds had been healed by the resurrection, her clothes had been restored to the point at which she'd died, which mean the tattered cloth was still sticky with her blood.

"Rise." A command. Erxaris' voice.

Sylvanni gritted her teeth, the lingering weakness of the odd return to life starting to dissipate, and she pushed herself up to stand. Exaris' insectile expression was indecipherable, but if Sylvanni had to guess, the Vandal was profoundly displeased. That put a defiant smile back on the Awoken's face.

The Guardian fell into a respectable parade rest, feet apart, shoulders squared, arms clasped behind her back, chin up. Despite her position of weakness a moment before, she wanted to face whatever was coming next with as much strength as she could muster.

Her eyes glanced about, noting the other guards in the room, just like before. They'd taken her knife away, predictably, but somehow thought that meant she was disarmed. A second mistake. Though she'd died and some of her Light had apparently ebbed away while dead without her Ghost, she could still feel the reservoir of it, brimming within her, her spoils of war from the fight.

Yes, the Light was still so distant down here, but she'd lived in the heat of battle again and spilled blood with her own two hands and she had been _rewarded_. The void thrummed powerfully within her, not a beast growling in hunger, but the demand of a cruel, unfeeling phenomenon that required destruction to satisfy its mathematical constants. Just a little more and she'd be able to engulf this entire room. She'd walked the void for centuries and she knew exactly where the threshold was to craft a perfect nova.

Even at a trickle, she only needed minutes to reach it.

"You said you wanted an entertaining show," Sylvanni said, unrepentant. "I gave you a show."

Erxaris' four eyes narrowed in a glare, then, strangely they crinkled as if she were smiling behind her mask. It was a discomfiting sight. "Quite. Baroness offers boon for impressive display."

"She isn't upset I killed all her combatants?"

"Sent to fight. Fought."

"And what is this supposed boon I am to receive, then?"

Erxaris chittered in amusement. " _Received_. Boon of life, Machine thief. New breath is reward. Now, return small machine."

Sylvanni had had a feeling this was coming. She kept her feet planted and stared the Vandal down. "You think I'd give my Ghost back to you?" She barked a laugh. "Go to hell. You can't have him."

Folding her upper arms, Erxaris shook her head in exaggerated disappointment. "Rudeness after Baroness' generosity? A mistake."

She made an off-handed gesture with one of her lower arms and three arc-charged spears rammed through Sylvanni's chest almost simultaneously. This time, however, the death was quick. Reconnected to her Ghost, her natural resurrection cycle took over again, sparing her the pain.

Her Ghost reappeared where she'd been struck down, floating. The guards who'd killed her yanked their spears free of her body, one kicking her corpse roughly to slide it off.

 _[I probably should have expected that,]_ Sylvanni admitted, speaking over her Ghost's internal communication system. Now that she was dead, her consciousness was housed with him and they could speak like this.

 _[Probably. One minute and thirty seconds until resurrection is available.]_

Sylvanni felt a jolt of surprise. She'd never seen a resurrection take that long outside of truly extreme circumstances. _[I was close to a nova. As soon as I'm back on my feet, I'll clear the room, Ghost, and then we'll get out of here, okay?]_

 _[Guardian…]_ The tone felt worried. _[I don't know that you'll make it that long…]_

 _[What are you talking about? As long as I've got you, they can't keep me down anymore.]_

Her Ghost didn't respond, presumably because Erxaris leaned forward, cocking her masked head one way, then the other as she inspected the activated Ghost. "Can still hear… yes?"

 _[She seems to know an awful lot about how Guardians work,]_ Sylvanni sent across the channel. _[I'm starting to wonder if "The Other" has been more loose-lipped about Guardians than he implied.]_

On the one hand, Uldren didn't seem like the type to easily break under torture, but on the other, would he really consider it worthwhile to suffer to keep Guardian secrets. He'd never say anything that might endanger the Reef, but what were Guardians to him? He'd made his disdain for her kind well known, and she'd seen firsthand that he knew much about Guardians' weaknesses and how to best disable them.

Why wouldn't he tell the House of Kings everything he knew of the Light and how to effectively attack those who wielded it? Was she captive now because of him and what he'd said?

She'd kill him herself if it was true. She might just kill him even if it wasn't.

"The thief thinks not," Erxaris scolded, shaking her head at the Ghost. "It does not realize it has only one choice. Soon, stolen machine will bring it back. Then, can submit and return Baroness' property."

The Judgment Vandal tapped the Ghost's corner to ensure Sylvanni knew what 'property' was being referred to. The Warlock's anger boiled within her to hear her Ghost spoken of in such a way, as though he could belong to _anyone_ but herself.

 _[As though there's any way I would turn him back over to you,]_ she thought harshly. As soon as she was back alive, that nova would be right at her fingertips, ready to show them all the true mistake of thinking they could leash a Guardian.

"Baroness offered generous gift. If instead, rudeness from _guest_ –" The Vandal chuckled, amused by her own joke in repeating Sylvanni's term. "–gift is no longer given."

Reaching her hand to the side, one of the guards gave her the stasis container that Sylvanni's Ghost had been trapped in before. Erxaris fiddled with some of the controls and the walls began to glow, activated. The Vandal held the open-topped cylinder forward, as though to scoop the Ghost inside now.

"See gift now? Can take back little machine without thief's permission, right now. Then, no boon for thief. No life. Understand?"

She did understand. It clicked into place with a terrible inevitability. She was a fool to think having her Ghost back made her immune. Her Ghost had realized it, but Sylvanni had been blinded by her potential revenge to realize. They didn't need her to give them the Ghost willingly, they could take him now, lock him away and disable him again, and leave her dead with no means of resurrection.

"Boon offered one more time," Erxaris warned. "Make smart choice."

Sylvanni seethed. _[I can't do it, Ghost. I can't just hand you over to them. Not after I just got you back.]_

 _[Guardian…]_ Though emotional tone was difficult to convey over the voiceless communication they shared during her revive process, she could sense his hesitation. _[If you don't, they'll kill you and take me away again anyway.]_

 _[So we just give up and let them separate us again? I can't be alone again, Ghost!]_

 _[Sylvanni.]_

The name hit her like a physical blow. Her Ghost almost never used her name. She was always just "Guardian" to him. It struck her in a way even the gravity of their situation hadn't.

 _[It's my job to keep you alive,]_ he said. _[It's what I was made to do. Better to be alive and apart than let you die. We have to do what they say.]_

Sylvanni wrestled with the choice before finally coming to a frustrated agreement. He was right. Of course he was. _[Fine. But it won't matter anyway in a few moments. I'll give you up but then I'll get you back, okay? How long until resurrection?]_

 _[34 seconds.]_

Erxaris stared at the Ghost the whole time, her four-eyed gaze blinking in an odd pattern: outer pair, then inner pair. It was disconcerting to watch. Sylvanni spent the time silently planning her next moves, picturing exactly what she'd do.

This time, when she dropped back into life, she landed squarely on her feet, comfortable and in control. The guards leveled their spears at her again, ready for a signal to strike.

"Understood, yes?" Erxaris extended an arm, claws upward. A demand.

Sylvanni closed her eyes, hesitating as she reached within, feeling for her Light. _Not quite enough._

So instead, she fixed the Fallen with a venomous glare and, with agonizing slowness, lifted her own hand and called her Ghost to it. He appeared in his customary little flash of transmat light and immediately swiveled to look at her, just like any other time she'd pulled him out to talk. There was a sadness in the angle of his corners, but he bobbed once, like a little nod, reassuring her that this was right.

 _Oh, don't look at me like that,_ she thought, nearly closing her hand around him and dismissing him back to safety right there. _This is hard enough as it is._

A small, protective growl rose in the back of her throat as Erxaris' claws closed around his shell, plucking him from the air above her hand and depositing him back in the stasis container. As the seal closed with a click, Sylvanni could feel a small jolt inside her core; the snip of a connection being severed. That hurt more than anything they'd done to her yet.

Her Light remained, however, all that she'd gathered brimming within. Had she been armored her helmet would have displayed how much she currently had, but she didn't need that to know. So tantalizingly close to being able to unleash it all.

Erxaris handed the container to one of the guards, then fixed Sylvanni with a cruel look that might have an alien smile. "Now, return other theft."

Sylvanni kept her emotions in check, maintaining composure though the confusing demand annoyed her. "What theft? You took my Ghost. You took the knife." She spread her empty hands. "I have nothing else."

"Not in hand," Erxaris said with an amused chirr. "Within."

The hair on Sylvanni's neck bristled, an instinctive warning that something had approached from behind. She tensed and started to turn but caught only a glimpse of a smooth black hull and a shimmering purple. And then the Servitor whined, and she was _consumed_.

Power engulfed her, enveloping her body entirely, lifting her feet from the ground until she floated, completely paralyzed. It was another pulse, similar to the one the Servitor had hit her with before she'd been sent into the arena. However, that experience had been a moment of intensity that had ebbed away. This time it slammed into her and then _intensified further_ , like a force of acceleration, a gravity increasing beyond her ability to withstand.

It pushed inward, power forcing its way beneath her skin, and she could feel it invading every inch of her body. Its tendrils wove between the strands of her muscles, saturated the marrow of her bones, skittered along the network of her nerves. A pain beyond anything she'd experienced burned through her and she longed to scream, but could not open her mouth or command her lungs to breathe while ensnared in the thrall.

Then, inconceivably, the power delved _deeper_ , pushing beyond corporeality into the realm of the essential, the causal. Here, it found what it it sought and with a terrible efficiency, seized upon it and _wrenched_ it from her. Task accomplished, the force retreated, taking some part of her with it. The Servitor dropped her to the floor and she hit hard, completely limp, but she barely felt the impact. Every nerve burned raw and ragged, a pain so overwhelming it was akin to numbness, as she could feel nothing outside of it.

She lay on the stone, too weak to move, feeling as though they'd ripped out her soul. Then she felt within and realized that in a way, they had.

Her Light was gone.

Not completely, though she initially feared that, the barest flicker deep down reassured her. They hadn't taken her Light from her permanently, but all that she'd gathered in the cell, in the arena, was gone, torn from her somehow and taken into that Servitor.

Her head lolled backward, bringing Erxaris into view just as the Judgment Vandal stepped back from the Servitor, saying something to the other guards, her armored limbs twitching oddly. Or, perhaps not twitching, but shuddering as if in delight. The Vandal removed her mask, four eyes closing as she breathed a sigh which could only be described as satisfied.

After the moment had passed, she walked over to the Warlock on the floor, one clawed hand wrapping beneath Sylvanni's chin and lifting her head and shoulders off the floor to whisper closely. A white mist, glowing faintly, leaked from her mouth as she spoke.

"Perfect tribute." Erxaris' words seemed more airy and sibilant than they'd been before. "First of many. That which is stolen returns to rightful owners. The Baroness will be most pleased."

With her mind muddled, it took Sylvanni a moment to register what that meant. The realization clicked into place just as Erxaris let her fall back to the floor. Unconsciousness swallowed her only a moment after the horror did.


	7. Chapter 7

Sylvanni came to as she rolled roughly to a stop against the floor of her cell. The Vandal guards who'd tossed her in cackled and clicked in amusement at her weakened state. She just tried to tune it out.

Those distant little wisps of Light got to work healing the scrapes she'd just incurred, but they did little to fill that gaping hole within her. Her Light, all of her reserves, torn from her in an instant. She wouldn't have thought it were possible, and yet the House of Kings continued to show far greater proficiency in understanding Guardians than she could have imagined.

She'd been _harvested._ That was why they kept her. It wasn't for information or entertainment, though she had little doubt they'd try to wring those from her eventually too. But her true purpose, it seemed, was to be little more than an unwilling Servitor, dispensing this Light-derived ether for those Erxaris deemed worthy.

She simply let herself lay on the ground as the cuts on her skin mended, unable to summon the will to even push herself up to sit. What was the point? There in the arena, she'd started to entertain ideas about saving her Light up until she had enough to break herself free, but now they could drain her of that power whenever they liked, and she had no doubt Erxaris would never let her get close enough to a Light level where she could actually pose a threat.

"It appears I was right. You are less glib about our situation. How fortunate."

Uldren's voice echoing from the other cell actually did pull a reaction from her: simmering annoyance. She'd almost forgotten he was there, but now she forced herself to sit up if only to retain some small dignity against him and what was certain to be an unpleasant conversation.

"You are the _last_ person I want to speak to right now," she said coldly. She couldn't see him from this angle, but that suited her fine. She could imagine the smug smile without having to subject herself to it.

"At last count, I was the only person here," Uldren said, his tone infuriatingly mild, "so I'd say you've reached the end of your list."

"Jump in the Hellmouth."

"Ah you are in a bad mood. What did the Kings do that was so terrible? I wonder if I can guess."

 _They tore my soul out of me, that's what they did._ She covered her face with her hands, trying to drown him out. "Please, just shut up. I'm not going to talk about this."

"Well, if you insist."

"I do."

Hoping that he would actually stay quiet, Sylvanni started to summon up her composure once more. She sat up fully, crossing her legs and settling in to meditate. Her Light may have been distant and faint, but it was still there, and she could still use it. She pulled her senses inward, and in doing so, quested out beyond herself. After a moment, her concentration allowed her to float a few feet off the floor. She hovered there, starting to drift through her thoughts, trying to focus on feelings of freedom. The Light could lead her memories back to her in the right direction.

Those little wisps of Light did pull her, but into a memory she hadn't expected. In hindsight, though, she really should have. The last time she truly felt free? The meditation conjured up her earliest days as a Guardian, when the world had been mysterious and full of quests and questions, and she'd met them with steel and a confident smile. She'd once been full of that same reckless abandon that all new immortals felt, the world at her fingertips, if only she would reach out and _grab_ it.

She found herself in the memory of an old battle, one that had lasted for hours. She hadn't known her fireteam very well, but they'd found a rhythm together in the fight. The Ahamkara was throwing every trick it could summon, taking every cheap attack to try to get them down, but Sylvanni had _danced_ amidst its destruction, laughing all the while. She'd been so new to the world back then, she hadn't really understood the larger implications of the Great Hunt, she'd simply exulted in the challenge of each new fight.

The person she was today—the stoic and focused woman who felt the weight of duty and the dignity of her station too strongly for such recklessness—felt uncomfortable remembering the immaturity of her younger self. As the meditation continued, however, she found herself taking solace in that unbridled joy she'd once had. How long had it been since she'd felt excited like that?

A clacking hiss pulled her from the memories roughly. She managed to keep control enough that she didn't topple out of her levitation, but the memories fled as her focus was broken. A Kings Vandal stood on the other side of the bars, making noises at her.

She lowered herself back to the floor, turning away from it. If the Fallen wished to gawk at her like she was a menagerie creature, the least she could do was not give them a show. She closed her eyes again and resolved to put the cacophonous speech out of her mind and ignore it as best she could.

At least, until Uldren started hissing and clacking from the neighboring cell.

As she turned sharply, the Vandal noticeably perked up, focusing in on Uldren and saying something in response. Sylvanni couldn't help herself; she stood until she could see both Uldren and this Vandal inexplicably… converse.

"You speak Fallen?" Her disbelief was clear.

Uldren eyed her, with a little smile on his face like he'd won something by making her ask the question. "It's rude to interrupt. And the language is Eliksni, not 'Fallen.'"

The Vandal paused as the two Awoken started to talk to one another, watching them both curiously. Sylvanni was unsettled by its gaze.

"But yes," Uldren continued after an unnecessarily dramatic pause, "I do speak Eliksni."

"I… didn't take you for the type," Sylvanni admitted, her shock prompting frankness.

"My Queen was Kell of the House of Wolves and its members served as her closest guards for years. Do you think I never bothered to learn what they were saying? To be honest, I'm surprised you _can't_ speak it. Aren't you one of the Traveler's witches, devoted to learning and scholarship?"

"Warlock," she snapped, knowing he used the wrong word only to get a rise out of her. "You Reefborn are the only ones who have witches, unless you count the Hive." He did have somewhat of a point, though she'd never admit it. Decades ago, she'd studied Eliksni orthography, and she could read their writing decently well, but she'd never bothered to study the spoken form of the language. Unlike the Reef, the Tower had not had any allied Eliksni to teach it.

When Uldren didn't respond immediately, the Vandal started chittering again, to Sylvanni's displeasure. She eyed it warily. "What's it saying?"

" _He_ ," Uldren said pointedly, "is asking if I'm translating for you. Which, as of now, I suppose I am."

"For me? What do I have to do with this?"

Uldren paused to listen to the Fallen a little while longer, who gestured with his upper arms as he spoke. Sylvanni watched Uldren's expression as it moved from curiosity to surprise, trying to decipher what that meant.

"Isn't that interesting?" Uldren mused. Sylvanni assumed his phrasing was specifically intended to frustrate her. "It seems he's here to bestow an honor."

"Excuse me?" Her eyes narrowed, certain he was trying to trick her.

"Ah, yes, it's a custom among the Houses which is likely odd to an outsider. Eliksni society is so cutthroat, it is extremely taboo to show weakness. Admitting you've wronged someone could get you docked, either in ether rations if you're lucky, in arms if you're not. But, like any group, people are bound to upset each other. Instead of apologizing and asking for forgiveness—an action of weakness—the Eliksni in the wrong will instead 'bestow an honor' to the one they've wronged, praising them for dealing with a more difficult situation or something similar. Then the conflict can be amended between the two."

Sylvanni crossed her arms, annoyed to find the explanation more confusing than the original conflict. "That doesn't answer what I have to do with this. You're telling me this Fallen thinks he's wronged me somehow?" All of the Kings had wronged her, as far as she was concerned, but she didn't see their barons and Kell lining up to apologize to her.

Uldren turned back the the Vandal, and it chattered at him for a short time while he nodded along. "Hmm, he's saying something about a fight, but there was interference. It seems he believes you should have been the victor had the match been fair. He feels he must honor that deserved victory."

A spike of adrenaline rushed through the Warlock, and her head turned sharply to look at the Fallen outside the arc mesh. He was the stealthed Vandal from the arena, the one who'd killed her. Her initial reaction was hostility, hatred. The trauma and horror she'd felt, dying without her Ghost, that awful pain as the arc swords had run her through.

But, she pushed that emotional reaction down and tried to examine this logically instead. If what Uldren translated was true, this Vandal was trying to express... remorse, or at least the Fallen equivalent of it. That was worth investigating, if only because it was so unexpected.

She eyed Uldren. "What would the wronged person usually do in return, after having an honor bestowed?"

A smile played at the edges of the battered prince's lips. "How Fallen of you, Guardian. If you wish to acknowledge, you can sweep your arm out in front of you, palm down, and pull it to your chest. A gesture of accepting tribute. He'll know what it means."

Sylvanni hesitated initially, fearing that Uldren was trying to trick or embarrass her, but she looked at the Vandal and executed the gesture as she understood it, watching carefully for a reaction. The Vandal made a kind of twitching motion with a vocal trill. Sylvanni couldn't have guessed what it meant.

"He's pleased you accept," Uldren said, amused by the exchange. "He wasn't expecting you to know their gestures."

"I didn't."

"Well he doesn't know that. I think part of why he came was that he was curious to see if you were actually alive again. Your kind are almost mythical monsters to the Eliksni. It's rare for them to get to see the proof of your ability to cheat death like this up close."

 _Mythical monsters, hmm?_ She supposed she couldn't be surprised. Many times when Fallen and Guardianas clashed, it was the Guardian who walked away to tell the tale. She was struck for the first time by how humanity and the Guardians must be seen by their enemies.

The Vandal inspected her through the screen for an uncomfortably long time after that, until Sylvanni wanted to squirm, but finally some other Fallen called out in the hallway, and her surprisingly polite murderer finally left. Sylvanni watched it walk away until she was certain they were alone again, then she turned back to Uldren.

"Teach me to speak Eliksni."

He raised an eyebrow. "Was that a request or an order?"

" _Please."_ She had to force herself not to grit her teeth through it.

Apparently the fact that it grated against her pride to ask him was enough to satisfy the still-smug prince. He cocked his head, considering. "I'm not much of a teacher, especially not of inhuman tongues.I probably won't be much help at all."

"I'm sorry, did you have something more important to do while locked in your cell between torture sessions?"

He chuckled. "A valid point. What would you like to know?"

She thought of the alien chittering of the guards, of the crowds in her fight, of all of her captors. She thought of her first assessment, waking up disoriented in this cell for the first time. That initial conclusion was still valid, she realized: Above all, information would be her most valuable commodity.

She met Uldren's eyes through the cracked wall between their cells. "Everything."


End file.
